The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to allow a drop of much-needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off following the bloody Hamas rampage two weeks ago.
Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Hospitals say they are running out of medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators due to a nationwide power outage. Israel is still carrying out waves of airstrikes over Gaza that have destroyed entire neighborhoods, while Palestinian militants fire rocket fire into Israel.
The opening came after more than a week of high-level diplomacy by various mediators, including visits to the region by US President Joe Biden and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Israel had insisted that nothing would enter Gaza until Hamas released all prisoners of its attack and the Palestinian side of the crossing was closed by Israeli airstrikes.
Egypt’s state news agency Al-Qahera, which is close to security authorities, reported that only 20 trucks had reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday, out of more than 200 trucks carrying about 3,000 tons of aid that had been stationed near the border crossing for days. Hundreds of foreign passport holders hoping to escape the conflict were denied entry to Egypt.
The head of the UN World Food Program said aid was inadequate. “The situation in Gaza is catastrophic,” Cindy McCain told The Associated Press. “We need many, many, many more trucks and a continuous flow of aid,” she said, adding that before the war, about 400 trucks went to Gaza every day.
The Hamas-led government in Gaza also said the limited convoy “cannot change the humanitarian catastrophe” and called for a secure corridor that operates around the clock.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said: “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is under control.” He said aid would only be delivered to the southern Gaza Strip, where the army has ordered the relocation of people, adding that no fuel would enter the area.
Meanwhile, expressing growing international concern over civilians in Gaza, Guterres told a summit in Cairo that Hamas’s “reprehensible attack” on Israel two weeks ago “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
The opening came hours after Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first prisoners released after the militant group invaded Israel on October 7. It was not immediately clear whether there was a connection between the two. According to Israel, Hamas still holds at least 210 prisoners.
Hamas released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie on Friday on what it said were humanitarian grounds under an agreement with Qatar, a Gulf state that has often acted as a mediator in the Middle East.
The two traveled to Israel from their home in suburban Chicago to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were at the Nahal Oz kibbutz near Gaza when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and kidnapping at least 210 others.
Hamas said it was working with Egypt, Qatar and other mediators to “complete the case of the hostages” if the security situation permitted.
Heavy airstrikes were reported across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Saturday. The Hamas-run Health Ministry said 345 people were killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours and seven hospitals were out of service after being damaged by strikes or running out of fuel.
The Hamas-run housing ministry said at least 30% of all houses in Gaza were destroyed or severely damaged in the war. This figure does not include the destruction of entire city districts, which the UN refugee agency now describes as “inaccessible piles of rubble”.
There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says is aimed at rooting out Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said Friday it has no plans to take long-term control of the small but densely populated Palestinian territory.
Israel has also traded fire with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah along its northern border, raising concerns about the opening of a second front. The Israeli military said on Saturday it had struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to recent rocket launches and anti-tank missile attacks.
“Hezbollah has decided to join the fighting and we are demanding a high price for it,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to the border.
Israel issued a travel warning on Saturday, ordering its citizens to leave Egypt and Jordan – with which it made peace decades ago – and avoid travel to a number of Arab and Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, the fake Diplomatic relations with Israel were established in 2020. Protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza broke out across the region.
An Israeli ground attack would likely result in a dramatic escalation of casualties on both sides in urban fighting. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the war – most of them civilians killed during the Hamas invasion. According to the military, Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets at Israel since October 7 – more than 6,900.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. This includes the controversial number of victims from a hospital explosion earlier this week. According to the ministry, another 1,400 are believed to have been buried alive or dead under rubble.
Hosting a summit on Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi called for securing aid to Gaza, negotiating a ceasefire and resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that last collapsed more than a decade ago. He also said the conflict would never be resolved “at Egypt’s expense,” citing fears that Israel might try to push Gaza’s population into the Sinai Peninsula.
King Abdullah II of Jordan told the summit that Israel’s airstrikes and siege of Gaza were “a war crime” and criticized the international community’s response.
“Anywhere else, an attack on civilian infrastructure and the deliberate starvation of an entire population of food, water, electricity and basic necessities would be condemned,” he said. Apparently I added: “Human rights have limits.” “They stop at borders, they stop at races, they stop at religions.”
Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many followed Israel’s orders to evacuate from north to south within the sealed-off coastal enclave. But Israel has continued to bomb areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and some appear to be returning to the north because of the bombings and difficult living conditions in the south.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the opening of Rafah “an important first step that will ease the suffering of innocent people.” Great Britain, France and Germany also welcomed it.
The World Health Organization said four of the 20 trucks that passed through Rafah on Saturday were carrying medical supplies, including vital supplies for 300,000 people for three months, trauma medicine and supplies for 1,200 people, and 235 portable trauma bags for first responders.
According to the World Food Program, another 930 tonnes of emergency food is waiting to be transported via Rafah. He said it must replenish its “rapidly diminishing supplies” as it expands food aid from 520,000 people to 1.1 million people over the next two months.
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